Finding out the Marah site redesign includes one of  my photos.

…when you've bought its new album in TWO formats you can't play.

…when your day's fav read is its leader asking fans to aid his sobriety.

We played a show there last week, but I don't remember it….I  sorta remember the soundcheck, But not the performance, I think we took the stage around 1am, it was super fun… I'm guessing…but now i feel kinda cheated.

Later in the week I woke up in a Madrid bar, it was wicked late…Christine found me god knows how…she shook me awake…"hey it's Christina!!" I had bought a lot of old Spanish men drinks and had no money on me, Things were getting weird…i had what appeared to be a cigar burn on my left arm and very little fear of anything…she bailed me out of a tight spot and we repaired to Hotel Ateneo. Spanish Police knocked on doors, people vanished into different rooms.

This ain't life like this.

…when you're happy for him and happy Marah plays D.C. soon.

"Fuzzy water, sad cafe, the Turkish in Italian play, the music of a rainy day, the arks are made for raining / I'm blue smoke on the black canal, I'm Mississippi but I don't know how to turn around and take a bow / even that seems played out / I can't get out and I shan't get down / melodies still roll around / be-low empty, it's hard for me, all silver tape and frayin' / Oh my darling, still the vile winds that howl…" –Tramp Art

The wee small hours come in different ways for different people. For Sinatra, on his album of that name, the time means drifting through the rooms of a house. The time is lonely and ornate. Orchestration paints a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, a windowsill, and a hall.

For Marah, the album for these hours appears to be the new one. I have been trying to decide how to interpret Life Is a Problem, and last night's show at Iota has led me here… The kitchen has dishes in the sink, the opinions of anyone's recent grocery run and a phone with a cord that stretches forever. The living room is the workspace of the house musicians. The bedroom is for dead sleeps and sexual pacing, with a closet where everything that used to be important is piling up toward all that's now important, hung or shelved. The windowsill is heaven in summer and frustration in winter. The hall sees too much traffic and, if this is home, is the most affecting room in your house.

For Sinatra, the wee small hours are melancholy. For Marah, they are loose ends. Not lonely, not surrounded, not hot, not cold, not for work, not for play. The hours have answers, though, and they require effort.

About the show? The renewed band isn't fully formed yet, but they're hitting early marks. Dave's solos are going to terrific levels creatively, and he's bringing the new material even more to life than the raucous album. Christine's musicianship and personality are increasingly clear as the missing links in Marah evolution. Of the new band players, Mark Sosnoskie is punching his bass guitar as he jumps on the Iota bar and scaling the stage to play his trumpet. I could see Serge adopting him.

In related news, Christine raps. Best Marah randomness since Slo-Mo. Joining me in the rocking and liking what she heard and defending my chair at the bar later, Alison named it her favorite moment of the show.

Stuff to work on #1: The band needs to go on vacation together. Dave and Christine are obviously close, but the new guys are obviously still the new guys. So, the starter on the new album is Muskie Moon, an old Marah song reworked to new heights, and it's loaded with great lines. "To the moon, I say goodnight and blow a kiss" is one. "What a funny bunch of drunks have all gathered" is another. Marah has its legacy of weird personalities. Introduce us to your new funny bunch of drunks.

Stuff to work on #2: Dave mentioned coming back to town in August to play Rock and Roll Hotel. Awesome. I love Iota, but the crowd was too comfortable last night. Hotel's setup should make us sweat some more and knock out some distractions. I mean, this is freakin' Marah, people. They sweat for you, and you should sweat for them. That's the deal.

What needs no work: Cassette tapes. You heard me right. Bought the new album on tape at the merch stand. (You can do the same online.) I'm not saying this particular cassette is a magic cassette. (But it is.)

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We're just about a month away from the new Marah, and the initial song has arrived on Stereogum. "A weird animal," the blog calls Valley Farm Song. "What sounds like beatboxing (or is it someone pulling a straw out of a drink?) and bagpipes (or is it a busted harmonica?) sit alongside guitar, a pounded out piano, and banjo." Pipes! Coolerman!

My take? I like the sound. It's like all the preceding albums thrown into a dryer together. Maybe that dryer is on the outskirts of a house, like your garage fridge or the stereo in your not-too-finished basement. I can't make out half the lyrics, but I'm okay with that for now. I'm glad the band's Arlington show happens just before the family beach trip.

[This song and three others appeared in a Facebook'd leak the other week, but the band closed the leak before I could download. And for that I am sorry. But a remake of Muskie Moon sounded pretty good.]

In other Marah news, pics have surfaced from last month's awesome Takoma Park show and now… some videos. How do you like the back of my head? "Unprecedented house-party guitar solo? Just sayin…"

This is how close we were.

Marah was playing in somebody's house in Takoma Park. That was all I knew when I bought tickets. Keyboardist Christine Smith befriended a bunch of us on Facebook, and clicking through to her MySpace turned up the house concert, just posted and not even publicized yet. Sold.

A month later, we pulled up to the house, met homeowner Pete in his front yard as his son hopped on the trampoline, dropped our beer into the coolers on the deck, met some good people all excited to be there, heard about the chickens out back, grabbed plastic chairs in the front row of the cleared-out living room, and let Dave Bielanko and Christine hit us with an acoustic show the only way Marah does acoustic. Loud.

I was a decade into loving the band. Emily was taking a flier. At dinner before, the waiter edited the drink list. They were out of the Puppeteer and only had a bottle left of the Woop Woop. Emily read my mind: We had to get one of those two. They had the best names. And the Woop Woop came out nice. Heard later the name was Aussie slang for deep in the Outback. Like, "We went all the way to Woop Woop and back."

The start was quick. Pete and his neighbor Matt introduced the band.

Then we got rolling.

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It's been a full two years since The Last Rock and Roll Band released an album and blew up. Since then, we've had sporadic acoustic shows, months of reported recording, one Internet single, and one of the two brothers departing active duty. Marah as we knew it ceased to exist.

But now we have a new Web single, and we have a release date. The new song is Waiting for a Devil. Music here. Lyrics here. Writes Dave:

I played a borrowed "high string" guitar and one of my brother's rusty old harmonicas i found in a road case. "Waiting for a Devil" is fashioned after some "old time religion" songs that I've grown to really love (Washington Phillips, The Anglin Brothers, Blind Willie & Kate McTell). I sang this song with Christine and she played the Fender Rhodes electric piano. Johnny Pisano played the upright bass and later played electric response lines through a plate reverb. Martin played his drum kit through an old tube amp (but don't blame Marty, i made him do it).

Of course, the forum version of this has a postscript from Dave.

PS-Sorry for being out of touch. Sorry for not posting on the message board much. Sorry for not playing in Pittsburgh more often. Sorry for years of mismanagement and underpromotion. Sorry for not being the biggest band on earth. Sorry for not being Kings of Leon. Sorry for not being 17th runner up on American Idol and selling 13 million albums (this morning). Sorry for being smashed that time you and your fiancee came out to see us in Dallas in front of 30 people. Anyway, miss you guys too, still love ya, see you soon.

And an e-mail version of this intentionally buries the best news for us. "Barring any unforeseen disaster, the new MARAH album called 'Life is a Problem' will be released on June 1st, 2010 and we just know you're gonna love it… Our goal this year is to play all over the globe and have fun bringing cool Rock n Roll music to cool people. See how nice?"

The only music I have in greater quantity than Marah's is Bruce's, and I miss the Kids in Philly real bad. Bring on June and bring on that album. If we've met any time in the last two years, you don't know how much I love this band. I'm glad to have a new reason to tell you about them.

P.S. The departed brother? Maybe the best pic ever of happy life after a rock band. On his kid's first birthday, taken by his cool blogger wife.

For the first time in seemingly Internet forever, Marah has a new song to download, Put 'Em in the Graveyard. It sounds muddy and unedited in a variety of ways but is better than radio silence, and I hope there's more to come. The title of this post comes from the promotional e-mail, and the passage below comes from the site (home of the download).

Considering it's been such a long time since we shared a song and dance together we wanna put this out there for y'all…something new to enjoy and discuss while we wait for the other shoe to drop. We also promise that your $contribution will not be blown in some smoky pub but will aid us greatly in bringing a lot more "unreleased" Marah music into the world this year. Think of the mix tape possibilities.

"Put 'em in the Graveyard" is not a "single" in the "Love is a Battlefield", "Shock The Monkey" kinda way, but merely a new song we are quietly and independently "making available" now due to the timely Halloweenish connotation of its title. Get it?

Lyric bests include Billy Ripken and Bonilla cards and a hater shoutout: Gimme a lily for all the Kids in Philly, penny the eyes of my old albatross / And see their dames are lying there right beside 'em when the circling vultures swoop down to their cross / Like endless lovers of a silent fraud, they're birds of a feather, by God … Put 'em in the Graveyard.

That would be the Dave Sheinin- and Patrick Cooper-loved Rain Delay from Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later on Tonight. "Good evening from Veterans Stadium in South Philadelphia where, unfortunately, it's raining very hard and we're stuck in the dreaded pre-game rain delay. … We were going to hear our national anthem performed by those velvety-throated teen idol sensations Marah, but that seems unlikely now. Strangely though, they're still standing out there in the drenching downpour. Grinning! Boy, these cats are weird…" Marah on the death.

"I ain't never did no wrong…."

Jeremy gave the following preamble on Facebook, and I liked it: "I dutifully ignore most of these Facebook lists, in which you get tagged in someone else's and are therefore obligated to make your own, but this one sounded kinda fun. So the challenge is to list 15 albums that changed your life, most impacted you or whatever …  I'm limiting mine to officially released material only because otherwise this would be a list of 15 Bruce Springsteen recordings unavailable in stores." My list:

1. Born to Run, Bruce Springsteen
2. Darkness of the Edge of Town, Bruce Springsteen
3. Kids in Philly, Marah
4. A Legendary Performer Vol. 2, Elvis Presley
5. Gold, CCR
6. Tunnel of Love, Bruce Springsteen
7. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, Wilco
8. Summerteeth, Wilco
9. Pneumonia, Whiskeytown
10. Get Lifted, John Legend
11. Greatest Hits, John Denver
12. Joshua Tree, U2
13. My Aim Is True, Elvis Costello
14. Pet Sounds, Beach Boys
15. West Side Story soundtrack

If you want to fight, each one is easily explainable, and I know karate.

Most difficult cuts: Demolition, The River (but you know The River is fine without you), James Brown 20 All-Time Greatest Hits, Chronicle, The '59 Sound (I'm guessing it'll stick), Songs for Swingin' Lovers, Bill Withers Live at Carnegie Hall, Let's Cut the Crap and Hook Up Later on Tonight.